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Eric Margolis, foreign correspondent and author of War at the Top of the World and American Raj, discusses the Assad regime’s deep entrenchment throughout Syrian society (good luck overthrowing it), the foreign governments behind some opposition groups, Israeli strategy: stir up trouble in multi-factioned Arab states and let infighting leave them as the last strong state standing; US intervention in Libya: humanitarian effort or Arab spring counterrevolution and why Iraq’s government will indeed invite the US to stay past year’s end.

Eric S. Margolis is an award-winning, internationally syndicated columnist. His articles appear in the New York Times, the International Herald Tribune, the Los Angeles Times, Times of London, the Gulf Times, the Khaleej Times and Dawn. He is a regular contributor to The Huffington Post. He appears as an expert on foreign affairs on CNN, BBC, France 2, France 24, Fox News, CTV and CBC.

As a war correspondent Margolis has covered conflicts in Angola, Namibia, South Africa, Mozambique, Sinai, Afghanistan, Kashmir, India, Pakistan, El Salvador and Nicaragua. He was among the first journalists to ever interview Libya’s Muammar Khadaffi and was among the first to be allowed access to KGB headquarters in Moscow. A veteran of many conflicts in the Middle East, Margolis recently was featured in a special appearance on Britain’s Sky News TV as “the man who got it right” in his predictions about the dangerous risks and entanglements the US would face in Iraq.

Margolis is the author of War at the Top of the World: The Struggle for Afghanistan, Kashmir and Tibet and American Raj: Liberation or Domination?: Resolving the Conflict Between the West and the Muslim World.

You don't want factional in fighting, you know you have been in the corss hairs for 20 years, you see what has happened in Egypt, so what do you do? I know lets shoot 9 people at a funeral who are morning the death of protesters. Riiiight snipers shoot people ata funeral. that wasn't foreigners… Israel did that and the Turks are also in this mess. Surprized Eric didn't bring that up. PS Raimondo called this "humanitarian" junk back in 2008